town meeting! town meeting tonight!

Last week was pretty rough. Elder Christensen was shipped off to Richmond to sit in meetings all day while me and Elder Killpack worked in Wakefield. It was a tiring week.

 Another picture from the James River I didn't get to send last week.

On Monday we got kicked off the computers real early and we couldn't get back on cause we had to go to our Branch mission leader's house to do some service. They needed some fencing taken out in some of their horse pastures. It was done pretty quick for how much we had to do but it took up the rest of p-day. Elder Christensen's mom called the mission home cause he didn't have time to e-mail her that he recovered from the stomach flu last week. So that had to be worked out. Please don't ever do that. Unless absolutely necessary.

On Tuesday Charles called and said he was going to the veteran's hospital in Hampton so he wasn't going to make his baptism. That was all fine cause we just pushed it back to the 27th. But then we called him back Saturday and he told us that his cancer came back and so he's waiting for the operation. Because he had an irregular heartbeat they put him on blood thinners but now they're waiting for those to wear off so they can operate on him. We're not sure when the operation is but he said he'll probably be gone for another 2 weeks. Now the question we've been pondering is whether or not to try and baptize him up in Hampton before the surgery, cause he's completely ready for it. If they don't operate for another week or so down the road we just might do an impromptu baptism just so he can have that done before the surgery. He says he reads the Book of Mormon while he waits around in the hospital. We're still trying to decide what to do. Oh, and did I mention that he's been invited to be inducted into some amateur softball hall of fame? Cause he is.

The sign says electric fence.
 But I'm touching it anyway.
That's funny, right?

So no, there wasn't a baptism last Saturday. We did set 2 more people for baptism, which was good. I don't know if they'll make those dates cause they have a lot of things to work on before that but at least they're working towards it. The rest of the week was lots of missed appointments, some dropped investigators, and plenty of opposition. I think things will pick up though. We got to speak in sacrament meeting, which we didn't find out about until Monday night. I went first and I talked about happiness, which I picked cause of the M. Russell Ballard book that I had read. I only had to talk for 10 minutes and it went by very fast. Because of the 18 minute disaster I had last time I talked I was careful of the clock and had to say "I'm gonna stop talking now" when it got to about 10 minutes. Elder Christensen didn't appreciate that but oh well. I think we did okay.

Let's see. On Saturday we had the branch's Thanksgiving dinner. Lots of food. Lots of people there. It was also my 10 month birthday. I feel lame pointing those out.

This stupid thing is in our neighbor's front yard.
We are baffled by the girl's head.

As for transfers, we have no idea what will happen. I could list all the possibilities but that would be pointless. We'll just have to see. I just know that the end of next transfer will get me within a week of my year mark. I need to stop pointing those things out.

I can't think of anything else to say. Thanks for your e-mails. Until next week.

-Elder Parker